Çelebi Havacılık Holding's Transition to AWS: Operational Efficiency and Cost Optimization

Overview

Founded in 1958 as Turkey’s first private ground handling services company, Çelebi Aviation Holding has been a key player in the aviation industry for decades. With a strong commitment to continuous improvement, Çelebi provides a wide range of ground handling services, including ramp, passenger, cargo, and warehouse management, bridge operations, general aviation, lounge management, and premium services. Today, Çelebi operates across 3 continents, in 6 countries, with a workforce of 15,000 employees, managing operations at 70 stations worldwide.

Aim

For years, Çelebi had been running its applications on a cloud provider. However, over time, there were concerns regarding the optimization and efficiency of their existing infrastructure. To ensure their environment was performing at the highest level, Çelebi decided to conduct a thorough analysis and migrate to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the industry leader in cloud computing. The primary goals were to enhance operational efficiency, optimize resource utilization, and modernize applications using AWS-native tools.

Solution

The migration process was executed in a structured manner, leveraging AWS’s comprehensive set of tools and services:

Assessment & Analysis:  The first step was to analyze the effectiveness of existing virtual servers using AWS Migration Hub’s Discovery Tool. This allowed Çelebi to gain deep insights into workload performance, dependencies, and resource utilization, ensuring an informed migration strategy.

Migration Execution:Using AWS’s MGN (Migration Hub Service), virtual servers were seamlessly migrated to AWS, ensuring minimal disruption to ongoing operations. The migration process was carefully planned to maintain business continuity and minimize downtime.

Modernization: After migration, several AWS managed services were integrated to enhance scalability, security, and automation. These services helped optimize workloads, reduce operational overhead, and ensure a future-ready infrastructure.

Benefits

The transition to AWS provided multiple strategic advantages:

Enhanced Scalability & Sustainability:   The system was redesigned to be more resilient, ensuring high availability and better adaptability to business needs.

Workload Optimization: With improved resource allocation and automation, applications were modernized, reducing human intervention and operational complexity.

Cost Efficiency:  Optimizing virtual servers and adopting AWS’s cost-effective solutions led to significant cost savings, maximizing return on investment.

Conclusion

By migrating to AWS, Çelebi Aviation Holding successfully improved its cloud infrastructure, achieving a more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective environment. This transformation not only enhanced system performance but also reinforced Çelebi’s commitment to innovation and operational excellence in the aviation industry.